This invention relates to a sealing strip, particularly for use as a radial seal for a rotary engine, for example, of the Wankel type and is usually held in an axially parallel groove provided in the face of the engine rotor. Such sealing strip in general serves to slidingly engage the combustion chamber wall to thus seal the chamber portions from one another. The sealing strip is, according to prior art structures, made of a sintered hard metal, and has a body with a longitudinally extending hollow space open at the longitudinal ends of the body. Alloys of the following composition may be used as sintered hard metal: WC - Co; WC - TiC - TaC - Co; TiC - Mo - Co; TiC - Mo - Ni; WC - TiC - Ni - Co.
Multi-part sealing strip structures are further known, wherein to the open ends of the hollow body there are attached solid extension parts.
There are further known sealing strips in which the openings at the ends of the strip are closed by a plug made of metal, ceramic or graphite.
Single-part and multi-part sealing strips of the above-outlined type which thus are made of a sintered hard metal and have a hollow body open at the end faces are disadvantageous in that they effect only an unsatisfactory seal, since pulsating hot combustion gases are present in the hollow space, leading to a deformation of the sealing strip and to a breaking-away of the lubricating film. The disadvantageous properties of the endwise open sealing strips manifest themselves in particular in an increased wear and a decreased engine output.
Although sealing strips provided with plugs as outlined above, have a closed hollow space, they have, because of the different extent of heat expansion of the different individual materials, very unfavorable wear properties.